Chapter 35

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"You guys never left," Meredith said happily knowing that her best friend was still here and in one piece.
    "I promise we did," Wilson told her as he helped Halle out of the time machine. For some reason he was more immune to the symptoms of coming and going than Halle was. It made her feel lightheaded and out of sorts.
    "What was it like," Jalen asked seriously.
    "It was surreal," Wilson told him, still very much shaken by what he'd witnessed.
    "I think you mean it was totally real," Halle corrected him.
    "I mean, yeah, it was real. We went back a few weeks. We saw Halle's dad. We were on our usual streets and in our usual neighborhoods."
    "But what about when we go further back in time. I mean the project isn't really real! We can just use our imagination," Meredith said offering her opinion.
    "No!" The professor looked seriously at all of them. "I need someone to go back in the past with me. You all are going to use the time machine for your project and you're going to see what happens as a result of it. That will put validity to your project even though your teacher will assume that you were just using that as conjecture. Do you all understand?"
    Looking at each other the kids all agreed.
    "Did you finish your research? Do you know what year you'd like to go back to?"
    "The farthest back we can go to is what?" Jalen wanted to know.
    "1957," the professor stated gravely.
    "What year do you need to go back to," Halle wanted to know.
    Through all this talk, everyone seemed to forget that this man had an ulterior motive that involved their lives.
    "That's not important at this point," the professor told Halle sternly.
    "Why do you need to go back," Michael wanted to know as he caught on to Halle's concern.
    "It's none of your business," the professor stated getting agitated.
    "This is our lives you're playing with and we can't know anything about yours," Halle accused.
    "That's not it," the professor said resignedly.
    "Well, then, you should have no problem telling us. It seems like you know a lot about us and we know very little about you," Halle pointed out.
    "I want to go back and watch my children grow up. I can never be with them again. I was so excited when I found the time machine that I didn't read through all the journals. The first journal explained how it worked and I immediately set out into the future. I was gone for days so, instead of returning back to the second, I came back a few days later thinking that that was how time travel worked. Boy was I wrong!"
    The professor began pacing the room. He finally sat down in a recliner in the corner, "When I got back I had aged. I mean I looked ancient. My young children were the same age as when I'd left but there was no way they'd recognize me. I tried. I showed up upstairs and my wife started screaming her head off. The kids ran behind her and they started screaming too. The police were called. I was ushered out and the family was told that I must have walked into the home because the doors were never ever locked. My wife locked up the house after that. I was thankful that I'd taken my keys with me. I came back to the house a few days later, shutting myself off from the world and immersed myself into the journals. Wow, what a difference information makes! If only I'd read everything before leaving I wouldn't have missed my children growing up and getting older. To this day my family never knew what happened to me. It was as if I had vanished into thin air. I can't go back as I was then but I can go back now and watch from a distance. I can try to implant myself into their lives one way or another so that they become my friends and learn to trust me," the professor said sadly.

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